Gates on China’s military development: “history’s dustbins are filled with countries that underestimated the resilience of the United States.”

At almost 15% of the U.S.’ military budget, The Brisbane Times explains that China’s (relatively meager) defense expenditures are seen as a threat to U.S. regional hegemony by U.S. Defense Secretary Gates:

“Certainly China’s defence spending is far above the $US45 billion or so it declares in the state budget, probably double. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute puts the figure at just under $US100 billion in 2009, or about 2 per cent of China’s gross national product. That is still dwarfed by US defence expenditure of $US661 billion, or 4.3 per cent of gross domestic product.“

This excellent piece by Robert Higgs shows that, after including defense spending the is allocated outside of the defense budget through NASA, the Department of Treasury, etc., the 2009 National Security spending by the U.S. totaled 1.027 Trillion dollars:

“When President Obama presented his budget recently for fiscal year 2011, he proposed that the Pentagon’s outlays be increased by about 4.5 percent beyond its estimated outlays in fiscal 2010, to a total of almost $719 billion. Although many Americans regard this enormous sum as excessive, few appreciate that the total amount of all defense-related spending greatly exceeds the amount budgeted for the Department of Defense.

In fiscal year 2009, which ended last September, the Pentagon spent $636.5 billion. Lodged elsewhere in the budget, however, other lines identify funding that serves defense purposes just as surely as—sometimes even more surely than—the money allocated to the Department of Defense. On occasion, commentators take note of some of these additional defense-related budget items, such as the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapons program, but many such items, including some extremely large ones, remain generally unrecognized.“

National Security Outlays in Fiscal Year 2009
(billions of dollars)

Department of Defense

636.5

Department of Energy (nuclear weapons & environ. cleanup)

16.7

Department of State (plus intern. assistance)

36.3

Department of Veterans Affairs

95.5

Department of Homeland Security

51.7

Department of the Treasury (for Military Retirement Fund)

54.9

National Aeronautics & Space Administration (1/2 of total)

9.6

Net interest attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays

126.3

Total

1,027.5

Source: Author’s classifications and calculations; basic data from U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2011 and U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970.